


Float the Piper By and Down the River

by rabbitxheart



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Temporary Character Death, This has a happy ending you guys I swear, Time Travel, implied jester/caduceus, oh god what do I even tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 03:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17358056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabbitxheart/pseuds/rabbitxheart
Summary: Caleb watches Trent’s head turn to Fjord in slow-motion, and gaining enough focus to unlock the artifact is hard, but just as Trent begins to pull loose the artifact makes a humming noise, the scent of molasses and licorice root heavy around it.“Not strong enough,” Trent says to Fjord, words drawn out and distorted. "Wasn't then, isn't now." Fjord twitches and regains just enough control of Trent to keep him held down for a moment longer.“Enough!” Caleb roars, and the world slows to a crawl.





	Float the Piper By and Down the River

**Author's Note:**

> Title from By and Down the River by A Perfect Circle. This was mostly written to the Trespasser DLC soundtrack.

He always thought he would be scared. That when this would happen, because with his luck it would, he’d be a scared little boy again with no mother to run to. Even when he found this little group of theirs, even when the fire made his guts churn less and less, he knew.

Still, it pains him to know he was right.

“Caleb.”

Trent casts Nott’s limp and broken body aside with a dull thud, and of course this is how her life ends. Why wouldn’t it, when it’s all he’s ever brought into everybody else’s? Friends and family strewn in his wake, nothing given but death and destruction.

Trent approaches, open palms and calm movements. Caleb, perched on the flat hut roof, knows better than that, a lesson learned the hardest way.

“Caleb,” Trent repeats, pauses. Looks at the artifact in Caleb’s hand. “Both you and I know you don’t possess the power to control that, I was the one who taught you. You’re not strong enough.” The familiar tendrils of a control spell caress Caleb’s neck, but this time he’s prepared. Trent’s eyes narrow when the spell doesn't take. 

“You have the blood of my friends on your fingers,” Caleb points out lowly, the tangible disdain surprising even himself. He’s scared, yes, but the roiling rage in his veins is new. He stands up, readying himself for a battle he knows he'll lose. Has already lost. Doesn't mean he's about to go willingly. “I was a child. What I’ve learned since is _none_ of your work.”

“Asylums can only have so many books,” Trent scoffs, wiping Nott’s blood off of his hands, giving up the charade. “Do you even know what that artifact does? Y-”

Trent stops, eyes widening as his arms are pulled down to his sides, his jaw shut with a clack.

“Fuck you and your bullshit,” a raspy voice right below him says, making him look down. He sees Fjord’s extended arm first, shaking with the strain as an invisible vice comes up around Trent, old bones squished tightly in place. Jaw clenching in impotent rage.

Fjord’s face is pale when he looks back, his ragged breath slowing as the pool of blood underneath him grows larger. Yasha's sword, it looks like. “Go while I have him. Save yourself,” he says, his voice breaking, not breaking his focus. “ _Go!_ ”

Caleb watches Trent’s head turn to Fjord in slow-motion, and gaining enough focus to unlock the artifact is hard, but just as Trent begins to pull loose the artifact makes a humming noise, the scent of molasses and licorice root heavy around it.

“Not strong enough,” Trent says to Fjord, words drawn out and distorted. "Wasn't then, isn't now." Fjord twitches and regains just enough control of Trent to keep him held down for a moment longer.

 

“ _Enough_!” Caleb roars, and the world slows to a crawl.

 

He feels his feet leave ground, the sheer pull of the magic in his hands drawing him up by his sternum, and with him come debris and bodies alike. He dares not to look, afraid what a break of concentration would do with magic this intense. They occupy his thoughts, though, Nott and Jester and Caduceus and Beau and Yasha and even Molly and Kiri and soon Fjord, littered around him like ragdolls.

The one glance he spares reveals the look of wonder and hope in Fjord’s face, frozen in time 

_just_

_like_

_everything_

_that_

_has_

_ever_

_been,_

_is,_

_and_

_ever_

_will_

_be_.

 

For the briefest of moments, Caleb sees it all. _Knows_ it all. Will continue to, for as long as his mortal body survives, be it seconds or decades. The threads of fate and possibility and every single fiber of a weave no mere person should see, much less understand, but he _does_.

He sees Lucien, sees his parents and his childhood. He sees a young Yasha, the pride of her tribe, her bright blonde hair like a halo around her. Marion singing to a baby as blue as the Gentleman who left her, Beau forced into dresses and makeup and roles she was never meant to fit, wondering _why me_ , an even smaller Nott longingly looking at halfling children from afar, wondering _why_ _not_ _me_ , Caduceus wrestling his siblings in the midst of flowers and gravestones, a little less pink and a lot less tall. He sees Fjord in the candle lit captain’s quarters of the Tide’s Breadth, relaxed and happy, watching Vandren’s face with the admiration and adoration of not just a first mate, but a son.

He sees futures where they all pass away, one by one, just out of help’s reach. Others where they go together, facing down empires and gods alike.

He sees futures where they all grow old together, Caduceus lovingly taking care of them when they’ve lived their lives to their fullest, none of them fearing what may await them on the other side, in some futures even caring for their children until the day he passes himself, surrounded by the family they’ve built.

He sees their children. Because they _are_ theirs, hundreds of of them, the eyes and ears and skin and dispositions of their little family mixed and matched in every way possible and then some, all of them perfect in their own way, and for as long as Caleb knows them, he finds that he loves them all, more fiercely than he thought himself capable.

Caleb sees war, sees peace, sees death and growth, victory and failure, fate drawing lines between them like new constellations on old skies. He knows it will fade, unexplored paths of crossroads that his actions will prevent, _has_ to prevent, and then the world around Caleb disappears, his wounds closing and the tears in his clothes knitting up as a whirlwind of emotion carries him through the very fabric of time and space itself, right to where he wants to be the most.

 

He lands on his feet in the grass, as graceful as Frumpkin landing beside him, the fire inside him burning brighter than ever before.

He knows what he has to do, and for once he has no doubt about what it entails to get there.

 

Finding the small cottage isn’t difficult. His memory is as good as it has ever been. Neither is setting the immovable rod up in front of the door with a careful magehand, blocking it from being opened. Caleb’s fingers shake as he rolls up the sulfur and guano between his fingers, sending a tiny spotlight to the frame of the only window of the cottage big enough to let someone through. Silently keeping his concentration he sends Frumpkin into the house, ensuring the sleeping forms on the beds are who he thinks they are.

Grabbing the fabric of reality and tearing it aside seems so easy by comparison to what he’s just done. Caleb watches as the skies open up, breaks in reality forming like the ones Fjord’s demons sometimes crawl out of, and burning meteors crash down upon the cabin, its wooden frame shattering under the assault. Frumpkin snaps back to him just in time and when Trent makes a break for it through the window just like all other possible timelines, Caleb watches as the delayed blast fireball triggers and finds its mark. If Hass was alive after the meteors struck he sure isn’t now, the frame of the cabin blasted into pieces much too small.

Trent, however. Trent is crawling away as fast as his broken legs will let him, patting the sides of his clothing as he goes. Caleb steps through the debris and the fire, gets close enough that Trent sees who he is when he looks up.

“Who-” 

“You took my friends and family from me once,” Caleb lets the artifact drop from his palm, swinging and glinting on its chain in the low light. Trent’s eyes widen in realization, then fear, and it’s like a scalding hot meal after decades of barely being nourished. “I am not letting you do that again.”

For all that he told Nott he didn’t want revenge, for all that he told himself he’d never have the guts for it, a dam inside him he didn’t know he had overflows and cracks as he steps back into safe distance, vines shooting up from the ground to hold Trent in place like Caduceus would, the field between them darkening like Yasha’s shrouds. The inflict wounds for Jester is cast just in time for Caleb to see it take effect, and the dam disintegrates, bringing with it the flood.

" _Arschloch_ ," Caleb hears himself say, sounding every little bit lost that he feels, and sending a fireball into the darkness feels like a metaphor for something he can't even put words to. A second, then another, then a tug at his glove and three scorching rays, like an orchestra of fire and destruction, and when the darkness fades there is nothing but smouldering grass, a few magical items not susceptible to fire and the charred remains of the worst man Caleb has ever known.

Using a careful magehand, Caleb collects what shouldn’t be left to unknowing hands, then lets Caduceus guide him as he decomposes whatever’s left.

Frumpkin climbs up his back, his claws catching little anchoring points of sharp pain, and Caleb takes a deep breath, imagining Beau’s hand on his shoulder, leading him away from the chaos both around and inside him.

“Time for that later,” he mumbles under his breath, a phantom feeling of lips against his forehead. “Let’s go home,” he says to Frumpkin, retreating into the woods as fast as his exhausted legs will carry him.

 

 

He can barely stand when he reaches the edge of a glade with a familiar cottage.

A voice calls out in the dark, the accent warm and familiar and Caleb closes his eyes for a second, allows for a brief moment of victory drenched in sorrow as he exhales a breath he drew long into a future he cannot allow to pass.

 _Didn’t_ allow to pass. Didn’t.

Time is muddled up, confusing at best and impossible to grasp at worst, but he’s alive and Ikithon is not and for the first time in decades there’s no trace of survivor’s guilt in his body.

“Caleb? Is that you?” The voice reaches him through the bushes, and Caleb chokes on a sob as he stumbles toward it. He quickly wipes his face with his sleeve and tucks the artifact into his palm.

“Ja, it is me,” he answers Jester, stepping into the camp. They’re all seated by the door of the little cottage he’d put up, and even though he knows Trent is dead he wants to shove them all inside to keep them safe.

“Did you find any firewood?” Caduceus hums, then sees the state he’s in. “Are you okay?”

“Wow, you look like shit,” Beau says, staring at the smudges of gore on his clothes.

 

Nott is at his side in an instant, checking for wounds. She reaches his clenched fist, gently coaxing it to open. The depleted artifact still glows faintly, the crystal cracked and duller by the minute. To anyone not quite as used to the arcane as him it would still look whole, charged.

“Wait, is that..?”

“Ja.” He unfurls his fist further, the adrenaline from battle quickly fading and realization of what he just did slowly catching up to him. “Yes, this is it.”

“You’ve only been gone five minutes,” Yasha says.

“Long story,” he says, laying his hand over Nott’s just to feel her warmth.

“So...” Nott says, worry and apprehension obvious despite her trying to mask it. “So you can do your thing now?”

He thinks about what to say, how to explain this, when a gentle but big hand strokes his upper arm.

“He already did it,” Caduceus smiles, soft and proud, and Caleb can’t stop the tears anymore. “You actually turned back time, that’s amazing. Congratulations.”

“I don’t know if it is something to congratulate,” Caleb chuckles humorlessly. “We, uh. We fought Trent. It did not go well, but I managed to get it from where he hid it.” He hesitates. “He controlled some of you, made you fight eachother. There was nothing you could have done,” he says, because he knows. Knows the powerlessness, knows the absolute conviction under the spell. Knows that something strong enough to break through Yasha's rage would always have won against his mind as a child. Nott’s hand clutches his harder and he squeezes back.

“What?” Beau mumbles under her breath while Yasha inhales deeply. Caleb knows now that she understands, heard her after Zuella, after Molly. Heard her when the mind control broke after Beau, and while Beau is alive and well in this version of existence, Yasha still _knows_.

“And you came back to me?” Nott says, voice wavering.

“I could never have done anything else,” he admits, a truth that has kept him up for more nights than he could possibly count. Now though? He can’t bring himself to regret it. “I’ve already lost one mother, I couldn’t lose you too.”

Nott reaches up and Caleb lifts her reflexively, pulling her as close as he can while Caduceus steadies his exhausted body. She clutches his face, peppers it with kisses, not bothering to hide her tears.

“I love you,” he admits, and isn’t that odd? That he’s never told her, even if she knew.

“I love _you_ ,” she says, petting his hair.

 

Caduceus pulls him in the way he does whenever someone looks like they may need it, warm and all-encompassing, Nott sandwiched in between them.

 

“I’m proud of you,” Caduceus whispers low enough for Caleb alone to hear, squeezing him a little tighter. “That was not an easy choice to make.”

“Thank you,” Caleb nods, setting Nott down. And because it feels important, urgent beyond explanation, he nudges Caduceus as he steps away. “Hey.”

“You love me, I know,” Caduceus nods, still smiling. “And I love you.”

“Gut, gut,” Caleb says to himself, then turns to the girls by the cottage door before he can change his mind. “I love you as well, you know that, right?” He tells Jester, her startled expression telling him no. “Well, I do. You are a light.”

“I love _you_ ,” she says, closes the distance between them to plant a kiss on his cheek.

“And you, too,” he says to Beau. “You drive me more crazy than I already am sometimes but I’ve heard that that’s what sisters do.” 

“If you make me cry I will _deck_ you,” she says, bottom lip quivering. Caleb lets out a small, startled laugh. “I love you, too. Come here before I change my mind,” Beau says, and Caleb goes, willingly grappled into a bone-breaking hug. He doesn’t have time to reach out for Yasha before she’s there.

“And I love you as well,” Caleb says. She says nothing, but she squeezes him a little harder and the familiar warm tingle of a healing spell taking away the last of his bruises and cuts.  

The sound of footsteps has them all pulling away from eachother, Yasha on edge and Caleb even more so.

“Guess who fell in a creek. At least it was before I found the firewood,” Fjord says as he walks into the camp, completely oblivious, clothes dripping and holding a pile of logs. He looks up, brows furrowing. “Y’all look upset, is everyone okay?”

Last time Caleb saw Fjord, he was on the brink of death. If Caleb had gotten something wrong, Fjord’s face would have been the last thing he saw and, circumstances aside, Caleb would have been okay with that, and that’s a startling thought all on its own. But Caleb did everything right and now he’s here, soaking wet and _alive_.

Fjord dumps the logs to the side as Caleb careens across the clearing toward him, more purpose than balance in his legs once Yasha lets go of him. Fjord catches him under the arms, keeping them both upright as Caleb sways into his chest.

“Whoa, hey,” he says, voice low and worried. “What’s going on?” Accentless.

“Trent ambushed us, and despite me getting to the artifact he almost beat us before I could use it.” Caleb’s body almost moves on its own, one hand remaining in the small of Fjord’s back, the other hesitantly hovering over a soaked undershirt. He takes a steadying breath, places his hand over Fjord’s heart. Feels the warmth underneath, the sway of his body as he breathes. “We were the only ones left. You kept me safe so I could use the artifact. You could have ran, but you didn’t.”

“Of course I did,” Fjord says, almost sounding a bit offended at the thought, the accent back in full force. “I said always and I meant that.”

 

What little self-discipline Caleb had left went out the window a good while ago. Not that he would have stopped himself if he could.

 

He has to tug Fjord’s clothes a little before he gets it, but Fjord leans down, cradles his face in his weathered, warm, _alive_ hands and kisses Caleb back with an abandon that’s neither hesitant nor appropriate around others.  For a split second, his head still reeling from all of it, Caleb almost thinks Fjord _knows_ the way Caleb does, but as he pulls away it becomes obvious how confused he is, even if he does seem glad all the same.

“Is this a goodbye?” Fjord’s voice is so gentle and low that Caleb has trouble processing at first, leaning into the thumb stroking his cheek like a cat.

“What?” Caleb frowns.

“You said you wanted to save your folks. And you should, I think you should. I would,” Fjord says, voice steady, a small smile on his face even, but Caleb is close enough to see how it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, sees the shine he’s trying to blink away. Fjord’s right hand drifts down, rests against Caleb’s breastbone, the protective amulet caught inbetween. “You’re safe now, you can undo it.”

 _It_. With all the things that followed for all of them.

“I made my choice. The artifact is depleted.” He hears Nott gasp behind him and Caleb feels himself choking up again. “There is nothing I can do.”

 

“But I can,” Jester says. They both turn a little to see Caduceus ushering the others into the cottage, all of them nosy but none of them really any match for their 7ft friend. Jester slips out under his arm and he lets her go, giving her a small nod.

“You can turn back time?” Caleb looks over, feels Fjord bury his face into his hair, much like Nott did.

“I can resurrect them.” She looks over at Caduceus who’s still lingering in the doorway. “Caduceus and I talked. It would be a true resurrection, no undead stuff. I wasn’t strong enough at first, then Caduceus wanted to let you make your own choice, so we made a deal.”

“I’ve always known you were destined for great things and I promised I would be here for it, but it wasn’t our journey to take for you,” Caduceus explains. “You could have gone back, undone all of this, have your parents back and we’d be none the wiser. But here you are. With us still, having mastered time. But there’s time to figure out the details later. I have a feeling you may have things to tell us, too.”

“One second,” Jester says, then Caleb feels both him and Fjord be cleansed of water and dirt alike. “There we go,” Jester says, then turns to Fjord, making some faces and gestures Caleb really doesn’t understand, but he feels Fjord nod.

“Got it, Jess,” he says, chuckling a little.

“Come on, Caduceus. You promised me mulled wine,” Jester says, turning them. “Let them talk,” she says, stage whispering to him. “It’s _romantic_.”

“Oh jeez,” Fjord says under his breath, and now it’s Caleb’s time to chuckle, the skin of his cheeks clearly darkening this up close.

“Alright, you know where to find us,” Caduceus says, ducking as he steers her into the cottage.

 

“You’ve got to be exhausted,” Fjord says, running his fingers through Caleb's hair, making his eyes flutter shut for a brief second. “Are you okay?”

“Better than I thought I’d be,” Caleb says, giving himself a moment to take Fjord in. “I saw _everything._ Every single possible timeline with us in it. There is so much to tell all of you.”

“We have time,” Fjord says, and they do. They actually do. “So which future is this for _us_?”

Caleb thinks of warm sand between his toes, Nott’s halfling form in the lap of his mother, basking in the Menagerie Coast sun. His father and Fjord fishing at the dock, the golden band glinting on Fjord’s finger. The rest of their family coming by from time to time, never out of reach even when they’re far away.

The sound of little feet on wooden floors.

“It is a good one,” Caleb divulges, and pulls him down for another kiss.


End file.
